27 March 2023 by Leave a Comment

{Time management} When you’re too busy to sort out urgent things

Did anyone notice that I haven’t posted for weeks? No? That’s okay.

My website (and this blog) has been down for at least a week and a half before I had the time and mental space to book someone to attend to it.

Two interesting facts:

  1. I don’t believe in the phrase “I don’t have time” – exhibit A, my book, 31 days of Enough Time.
  2. It is tremendous growth for me to not “freak out” about a website being down.

With regards to number 2 above, this has happened a couple of times over the last few years. In the before times, I’d immediately book a person to attend to it and would not rest until it was sorted.

This time, I looked at the error, thought I should be able to fix it (I do like the methodical part of playing with a website, and tinkering until things are just right.) but knew I didn’t have either the mental bandwidth or early evening time (trust me when I say you should not mess around with your website if your brain isn’t fully awake – this involves emails to web people that say “help – I messed up!”).

So I just left it until I had time to look at it.

I was able to fix one tiny thing but not the bigger issue so I hired that piece out.

And lo, here I am blogging again.

Time management literature says that fixing the website is a Quadrant 1 activity – important and urgent.

However, my Quadrant 2 activity was tending to my health (sleep, stress management by putting in extra work hours so I could sleep – yes, a circular argument, and exercise) first and then once calm, I could attend to that Quadrant 1 activity.

I shared all that to say this: sometimes the best thing to do is to invest the time necessary to make you feel calm, no matter what that looks like.

Sometimes work colleagues will be adamant in talking to me about shutting off their computers at exactly 5pm. I’m not saying this is wrong but I am questioning whether 30 extra minutes of work might give you a better evening’s rest and certainly, more rejuvenating sleep.

Just a little something to think about.

Are you investing enough time in Quadrant 2 of The Time Matrix?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Time management Tagged With: , ,
10 March 2021 by Leave a Comment

{time} What sparks joy with your time?

Pretty work notebook (use your nice stuff !)

It’s important to me to regularly take stock so that I remain intentional about the choices I make around how to spend my time.

In Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (you can read about the physical aspects of tidying by clicking the button on the sidebar —–>>), she says that once your physical space is tidied, you start thinking through bigger issues in your life.

I found this true for me too as in 2014 I completed my tidying journey and after it was done, I started a new job and in 2015 I had a really transformative personal year, the year of enough.

Once you complete your physical spaces, you’ve trained your mind so you start thinking about each part of your life and whether it still sparks joy.

Today I’d like to talk more about sparking joy with your time.

Book club

At Work

Think about the various parts of your workday/ week/ month/ quarter/ year. Which parts spark joy and which don’t?

I remember when I first did this exercise and noted down that there was a part of my job that I hated. When I drilled down and asked why, it was because of the type of client and the type of work I was doing for that client. Now the client wasn’t going anywhere and neither was I, so I had a conversation with this client where we brainstormed how we could change things for the better. Another meeting or two and while things weren’t sparking joy, there was no longer the extreme dread and boredom.

Now let’s talk about sparking joy.

I was writing a blog post/ newsletter here

Which parts of your work spark joy? Sometimes we don’t get to do these parts as often as we’d like but if we have the awareness, we can start to create time to do more of what brings us joy.

I identified that for me, I need to feel like I’m contributing by being creative with products, solutions, etc. but not by myself, in collaboration with my clients. A good day will have at least one such interaction so I try and arrange my week so I have multiple days of collaborating with clients because those sessions energise me most.

Over to you.

What sparks joy for you at work? What drains you at work? How can you add more of the first and reduce the second?

In your personal life

What sparks joy with your personal time?

I’ve heard from so many people during the pandemic that they will not be automatically signing up their kids to so many activities once life returns to normal. It turns out that rushing from one activity to the next on the weekend does not spark joy.

Does it spark joy for you to spend time with family? Or connecting with friends? Does it spark joy for you to be in service to others, like serving at a soup kitchen or volunteering at an orphanage?

Project Life

And what about time by yourself? Does it spark joy for you to do hobbies when you’re by yourself, to journal, to spend time in nature, to clean or organise, or to exercise?

I’ve shared many times that the perfect ratio of personal time for me is out and about (by myself doing Zumba, spending time with friends or family, or running a few errands), getting stuff done (cooking, organising, cleaning or pottering) and relaxing (reading, playing with my photos and very rarely, watching a show for an hour). When my time is too full of one section, I feel frustrated but the perfect weekend is a blend of all three.

What sparks joy for you with your personal time? I’d love to hear in the comments!

 

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Konmari, Time management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
24 February 2021 by Leave a Comment

{mindset} Do you have any extra in your tank?

Let’s talk about reserves.

Reserves is a term that simply means you have a store or buffer of time, energy or money as a safety net or a back-up plan in your life. Imagine these two scenarios… you get invited to a Zoom/ Teams meeting and are told that you’re being let go. Any change is a bit scary but if you know that you have absolutely no savings, no plan and no support, this will be a terrifying time for you! On the other hand, if you know that you have a couple of month’s worth of expense money in your savings account, your CV/ resume is current and ready to be sent out, and you have a good network to draw on, you will feel less terrified, maybe even somewhat confident in tackling this challenge in your life.

I speak to many people who say that they just don’t have enough time to do something that will make a big impact on their lives. Or they’re too tired or too drained to do something that they will really enjoy. If you have reserves in your life, aren’t you more likely to feel content, at peace, and also able to tackle anything? If you don’t have reserves, however, you probably will feel anxious, worried and afraid. Challenges like the example above will also feel worse if you don’t have health and stress reserves built up.

Having reserves means that you have enough at any given moment. This is freedom because it means you can make choices without having a lack of something – usually time or money – dictate how your decisions should be made. You also need a reserve of space, whether emotional or physical, to fulfil your dreams or, very basically, to do things that make you feel more like you.

How can you create the life you want if you don’t give yourself any space and time to do so? Time reserves mean that you don’t jam-pack your schedule so that you can say yes to connection with others or to your own pursuits. During this pandemic, I’ve spoken to many people who have said things like “I don’t think we’ll ever go back to all the activities again”. They have tasted time freedom and it feels amazing. We will talk more about time in next month’s article (I can’t wait! Send me questions you want me to talk about).

I also want to emphasise the physical aspects – stress and health. Almost everything feels doable if you’re in good health and you don’t feel stressed. If you don’t take care of your health and manage your stress, your body will start talking to you in the form of disturbed sleep and other physical ailments.

Once you’ve completed the worksheet, you’ll probably start to see a pattern that explains some things in your life. If I had completed this worksheet 10 months ago, I would have had very few yes answers in areas like health and stress. This also explained why I was so frazzled and crazy during early lockdown. I’m not making excuses – I’m just explaining that there’s always a reason why a particular area (s) of your life doesn’t seem to be working. I know you’ll all agree that it’s far nicer to feel content, fulfilled, satisfied and at peace than irritated and miserable.

I made a printable for you – the creating reserves worksheet – and you can download it here.

Tag me on Instagram @OrganisingQueen when you complete it while enjoying a lovely hot/ cold drink – I LOVE seeing your tags!

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Productivity, Time management Tagged With: , , , , , ,
4 November 2020 by 3 Comments

{time} How to apply the one-minute rule

It’s so interesting to see time management principles start to “click” for my 11-year-old twins. Of course, I’ve been talking like this for years and years, but as with all children, they employ the principle of selective hearing, so they choose what they want to hear.

One of the principles I’ve been using and talking about a lot during the (now) nearly 8 months of lockdown is the one-minute rule.

It’s quite simple – if something will take you a minute or less time, do it there and then instead of holding it over til later.

In the kitchen…pack things away, spray down and wipe the counter tops, unpack groceries immediately instead of coming back to it later

When you get home from school, unpack your bag and put your lunchbox and water bottle in the kitchen when you arrive.

If you have to sign something for school or respond to an RSVP, if it’s something you can quickly answer, do it there and then in one minute instead of having to look for the email/ text/ whatsapp later, and then respond. Here’s the one-minute rule for emails at work.

When you go upstairs with something, walk 5 steps further to put it away in your bedroom instead of dumping it in the pyjama lounge. This one ties in nicely with “don’t put it down; put it away“.

You might wonder if all these minutes adding up could not be done at another time. Of course they could assuming your motivation levels are high.

That’s the trick. Usually when the task first occurs to us, we are already in motion and it will be no trouble at all to do one extra minute. When we postpone the action, our motivation and energy levels may very well have flagged. This is definitely the case for one of my twins who needs a reminder that one minute now is like five minutes later.

Where are you currently using the one-minute rule in your life?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Outer order inner calm, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , , ,
21 October 2020 by Leave a Comment

{organise} Quiet your house and your life

Many of you know that one of my teeny-tiny habits is that I tidy or clean something in the kitchen while I wait for the kettle to boil. You can do a lot in 2 – 3 three-minute stints daily.

One day I looked up at the mugs and things felt too busy. I then did what The Nester recommends and I quieted the space by removing all the mugs from the shelves. I had rainbow mugs up here for much of the year because they made me happy. I then swopped out the bright colours for the more muted tones above. They still spark joy but they spark quieter joy.

You know how this goes – when you start one thing, you start thinking about the rest of your life. I felt so calm with the mug shelf that I noticed my calendar felt too full.

It’s understandable that things have started to feel a lot busier for me due to the opening up from the intense lockdown to our current level 1 lockdown in South Africa.

I started going back to Spanish in September and went back to the gym last week. We’ve also been told that we’ll be required to come work at the office twice a week from November. From a schedule with no leaving the house to leaving five times a week is a big change.

It all feels a bit sudden while at the same time getting out is also welcome. I realised that I need to close all my open loops so that I don’t enter this busy season collapsing every night when I get back home from overwhelm. This is why I wrote this post talking about first doing something about your physical space and then considering what’s hampering your mental space too.

Which of your physical spaces do you need to quiet? And your mental space?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Covid-19, Decluttering, Intentional living, Konmari, Outer order inner calm, Personal, Time management Tagged With: , , ,
7 October 2020 by Leave a Comment

{time} How to get a head start on your day

There are many ways to have a great day. Having a good night’s sleep is one way but today I want to talk about how to get a head start on your day and feel like you’re winning before you even start.

Make a list the night before if you’re an owl, or make your list first thing in the morning if you’re a lark. I would also argue that if you make your list the night before, emptying your mind might help with good sleep too because you won’t be worrying about what you need to do. And we all know what an advocate I am for good sleep.

It sounds like a really simple thing to do and yes, it is simple, but it has huge impact.

If you’ve never tried it before, try making a to-do list for one week.

  • notice how you feel in the evening
  • notice how you feel in the morning already knowing what your priorities are

I always suggest no more than 6 things but if you’re new to list-making, try just 3.

(I put 6 things on my work list and 3 things on my personal list every week day, and they definitely live in separate places although I look at both lists throughout the day)

Remember if you do your 3 things every day, that’s 15 tasks over your work week. 15 is fantastic!

What might you put on your list?

Priorities. When I’m doing my weekly planning, I add my priorities/ weekly goals to my list (usually 6 – 7 per week). Last week, I had “write newsletter” on my list.

Scheduled plans. I count scheduled items as things too because otherwise I forget that I’m actually away from home for 90 minutes. For example, coaching appointments, exercise, friend dates, and so on. On Monday, I had Spanish dancing, write blog (this one) and finish book (I’m 87% through).

Fun things. Reading is the most common fun thing, but in the last week of the month, I also get to play with my goals. I’m working through a course now so that is one thing for five weeks.

Chores. I usually have a night of cooking every week when I’ll cook 2 – 3 meals, all at one time. On one evening twice a month, I update the budget.

reading

And….. some days I put a big, fat old line through all my items and write HEADACHE because that’s all that happened 🙁

Do you make lists? If you don’t, will you try just for one week?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Goals, Intentional living, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , ,
16 September 2020 by 2 Comments

{organising} for spring according to your personality

It’s spring in Johannesburg and many of us like to do some spring cleaning. I like to do cleaning throughout the year otherwise the thought of all that deep cleaning will probably drive me deep into a book never to emerge.

I do love organising though and there’s a bit of cleaning involved there.

But whether you prefer cleaning or organising, there’s a way to approach it to suit your Tendency.

Let’s go through the Four Tendencies. If you’re not sure of your Tendency, take the quiz here.

Upholder

Think about your home. What do you want to do and why? Make a list of the things that you feel like tackling over the next month, keep it visible, schedule a couple of tasks into your diary/ calendar (actually, block out the time in your weekly schedule) and attack your list as planned.

Obliger

Which areas are important for your family to function well? If you’re not sure, ask them. Then announce your plans to them and to a friend who will hold you accountable. Block out the time and go for it. Bonus tip – follow a few cleaning accounts on Instagram (@jottiesjournal and @lynsey_queenofclean) for inspiration but remember that watching Instagram stories will not get your own house organised.

Questioner

First figure out why you want to do what you want. If you want to declutter spaces, first ask yourself why a space matters to you and what is important to you about that space. Once you get really clear on your why, you’ll be able to start and stay the course. Questioners get demotivated when they can’t see the point of doing something.

Rebel

If it’s important to you to have a clean and/ or organised home, then go for it in your own way. Do not follow any of the plans you see on Instagram or Pinterest. Definitely don’t sign up for one of those monthly challenges with a different section every month, or if you do, jump around and do as you feel like you want. Perhaps have a cleaning caddy handy and, as the mood strikes, clean or organise whatever you feel like doing, in your own way.

I would love to know what your Tendency is and if this helped you in getting your head into spring cleaning/ organising gear.

I also offer 1:1 Four Tendencies coaching sessions where we talk about your Tendency and more importantly figure out how to harness it to address any challenges you currently experience in your home, personal or work life. $60 for a one-hour session. Book your session now.

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Organising, Outer order inner calm, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia Tagged With: , , ,
26 August 2020 by Leave a Comment

{goals} Monthly, weekly, daily goals – how they all fit together

I was looking through the blog’s archives for this post I’m about to write and honestly, I can’t even imagine why I haven’t written it yet!

SheilaJo, a recent participant on both of my workshops, asked me: how do you fit your monthly, weekly and daily goals all together?

Monthly goals

My monthly goals process is split up into three sections. I usually do all three sections over two evenings, the first evening being Goals Night and the second evening simply because I get carried away and it gets too late.

Here are the three sections:

  1. Monthly goals review – this is the big picture thinking about how the month went. Since I naturally want to dive into the detail, reflecting on the big questions first helps me to be a healthier version of myself.
  2. Tracking on my goals spreadsheet – I use roughly the same spreadsheet year after year (I think this is year 6) and I track the number of goals set and achieved, average sleep, steps, number of workouts, which friends I’ve seen, books I’ve read and their breakdown, etc. I also then check my Books Read Notebook and update anything I’ve missed. See this notebook in the 2019 or 2020 highlights on my bookstagram account.
  3. Setting goals for the month ahead – this is the fun part because the month stretches ahead, full of possibility 🙂 I set clear, actionable goals in the categories of Family, Fun, Finances, Fitness, Friends, Four Tendencies/ Five Love Languages.

Weekly goals

My weekly goals happen in two stages.

  • On a Thursday night, Beth and I set goals with one another for the week ahead. I write these goals down in the Priorities section on my weekly plan (picture below).
  • I incorporate some of those goals into my weekend to-do list. When I do my weekly planning on a Sunday for the week ahead, I will then schedule the other items that still need to get done, and write them down on the actual day in my diary. This would also be the point at which I’d check on details, like if a friend and I had a “to be confirmed” plan, that’s when I’d send a quick message to make sure we’re still meeting, etc.

Daily goals

I don’t really do daily goals but I do have the scheduled appointments like Zumba, friend dates, coaching appointments, etc.

Based on how full my diary looks, I then will plan to do the other bits and pieces around my scheduled tasks. For example, I might do some photo editing (no thinking needed) on a night I do Zumba, but I’d probably only schedule the newsletter for another night and do nothing else (it’s a thinking task and has multiple pieces to its completion).

And of course, my biggest tip is this – I never put too much on one day. Spread out your goals over the week so you don’t get overwhelmed. That’s why God made a week with 7 days.

In terms of time, I spend about two hours a month (but I should time myself next week) on my monthly goals, Beth and I chat for 30 minutes (but probably 10 of those minutes are actual weekly goalsetting), and then I spend 20 minutes on my weekly planning, and less than a minute a day looking at my daily list and updating here and there.

That’s 120 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 = 240 mins a month which is about 8 minutes a day, a highly profitable use of my time because it yields hours of non-wastage 🙂

Do you do monthly/ weekly/ daily goals planning? How much time do you spend?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Time management Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
22 July 2020 by 1 Comment

{time} So many pandemic changes – part 1

I first started thinking about permanent pandemic changes when we had a meeting at work and our boss said that even when “all this is over”, we will only be required to come into the office once every two weeks.

(not wonderful news for an extrovert but I can decide and create my own amount of connection with other people, so not entirely a big deal)

A few weeks later in another virtual meeting, a colleague announced that she’d bought a second computer monitor to ease her work from home environment.

And then, on Instagram, a fellow organising friend said that they’d caved in and bought her husband a proper desk for the corner of the bedroom instead of making do with a dresser.

There are many thoughts that I have on this (I quickly jotted down 8 main categories) so I’m breaking up this post into two sections.

1. Work

If I’m only going into the office 1 out of every 10 days, as an extrovert, what will I need to do to keep sane? How much people time do I need? How will I connect with clients, colleagues and the greater company?

If you’re an introvert, you might be asking yourself, how do I get enough alone time with a house full of people all the day long? Am I doing what I need for my mental sanity?

2. Routines

Do I have good work from home routines? How will I ensure that I’m taking enough time off for rest and holidays? In pre-covid times, we were used to taking annual leave only to go away on an actual holiday. We all still need rest and relaxation. I write this on a day I’ve taken “annual leave” and I’m sat at the dining room table typing this blog post. I’ve also pottered around the house, listened to a book and podcast (and will do more of the same while I cook later) and supervised people installing new carpet upstairs.

I am going to make actual appointments every day at 5 so that I stop working – Zumba, ballet, friend dates, etc. I’ve also planned out some leave in August and September, and I already can’t wait.

3. Storage

I was tidying my Tupperware cupboards about a week ago and realised I have far too much (for reference, it’s all not real Tupperware, but plastic containers) for someone who is only going to an office once ever two weeks. So I’ve started to slowly let go. I always share my spinach with Nanny S (my family are not fans) and today I told her to put her half in a container and keep the container 🙂 When things don’t fit, I immediately add to the donate pile. This slow and steady approach works for me, or you could also go Marie Kondo with your stuff (I did that 6 years ago).

One of my coaching clients, P, a Questioner – she came to both the 4T and the 5LL workshops last year and started coaching with me soon after that.

4. My workshops and coaching

I’ll admit it – it took me a good month to get my head around not having people in my house but now that I’ve run three virtual workshops, I’m completely there. I had to remind myself that in the old days, I regularly ran teleseminars (the parent of webinars) and loved them.

I do like having a month of workshops and then a break, and then another month and then a break, both in terms of preparation and Zoom payments.

I’ve always had a mostly virtual coaching practice so there’s been no change at all. If you’ve thought of coaching with me before, a low-cost, low-risk way to see if we’d be good together is to attend a workshop with me first.

My question to you is this: have you considered all the ways your life is changing and started to adapt to the changes? Let me know how, if at all, you’ve made changes in the above categories.

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Covid-19, Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Mindset, Personal, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia, Workplace Wednesday Tagged With: , ,
22 April 2020 by 4 Comments

{organising} Project – how I decluttered my bookshelf

Let’s take a break from all the Covid-19 talk and focus on a fun, pretty project you could do during the workdays, if you’re not working, or on the weekend if you want a break from boring things like laundry.

I had a goal this year – to go through my bookshelf and declutter anything I no longer wanted to read. So this is it – these are all the physical books I own, other than the ones that live on my Kindle.

Here’s what I did and suggest you might like to do too:

  • If there are books a friend has loaned you and you know you’re not going to read them, return them. If you keep them, they start to guilt you everytime you look at them. None of us needs that guilt.
  • Return any books to their owners that you have read. See the brown wrapped book? Ready to go to a friend when I can next see her. (Edited – I ended up using a courier to send to her)
  • Pick up and go through each and every book on your shelf and make two piles: those you have read and those you have not read.
  • For the ones you have read, honestly answer these questions:
    • Do I love this book so much I want to keep it? Does it spark joy? Might I re-read it? Yes – keep. No – toss aside (I only keep books I LOVE and that rate an 8-10/10)
  • For the ones you have not read, answer these questions:
    • Am I likely to ever want to pick this book up to read? Does this book spark joy? Yes – keep. No – toss aside.
    • Was I gifted a book I don’t want to read, but am keeping because the person is a special friend or family member? Hold the book, think positive thoughts and toss aside.
    • The not-sure bunch. Ask yourself, is this a title I want to take with me into my future? Here’s where it’s easy to let go (most things I know full well I am never going to read like most parenting books).

Those tips helped me a whole lot. I now have books on my shelf I know I want to read and a lovely pile of books waiting downstairs to donate to my local library.

If you choose to go through your books, please send me pictures or better still, post your pics to Instagram or Facebook and tag me to come have a look.

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